Lucca was the first stop on our honeymoon, and where we stayed the longest. It was just perfect for us, to get some peace and quiet and get bored a little before going to bigger cities.

We stayed in a B&B, Magnolia, that was small and cosy and comfortable. The breakfast was really nothing to shout about, which was fine with us since we like exploring for breakfast anyways. Lucca is a city inside walls, and the best thing we did there was renting bikes and biking all around the city walls and point at houses we could live in.

It was Jostein’s wish that we go go Lucca, because he’s an opera person, and they go to Puccini’s city of birth if they can! I came along to the Puccini museum and a Puccini concert and it was lovely and so very italian.

Another restaurant, that I didn’t take pictures of (but we ate there two times), was Osteria Piccola at Piazza San Frediano, they had super delicious italian tapas and á la carte.

Our best fancy meal in Lucca, delicious food, delicious wine and perfect staff. It’s always a good sign when big, loud italian families and lonely men who know the waiters and read the paper at dinner, fill up the tables.

Not our first choice for a palace, but it turned out to be so much more beautiful than the closed Palazzo Pfranner (go there too though, for the garden!). Everything was gold and marble, we walked slowly through all the rooms and took it all in.

There was a queue outside at lunch every day, and we were in that queue. I would estimate that 50% of our meals were here, it’s the kind of obsession you feel a little guilty about but it’s unstoppable. You just have to have that pizza.